Former church sacristan jailed on sex charges

Mr Justice Abbot imposed a nine-year sentence for the oral rape, one year for the first indecent assault and five terms of two years for further sexual assaults.

He directed that the final two years be served consecutive to the nine years and the other terms concurrent with it. He also confirmed McNeill as a registered sex offender and said that three named garda stations in his area should be notified anytime he is released from custody.

Mr Edward Comyn SC (with Ms Orla Crowe BL), prosecuting, told Mr Justice Abbot the victim wanted McNeill named in the media reports of the case. She was aged nine to 14 years when abused by McNeill in the local church, in a turf shed at her home and in his house.

Mr Roger Sweetman SC (with Mr Barry Finlay BL), defending, told Mr Justice Abbot that McNeill still protested his innocence and took the attitude that he had been wrongly convicted.

Sergeant John Hynes told Mr Comyn the victim’s family had totally trusted McNeill and her mother in particular was "devastated" by his offending for which he made use of his knowledge of their activities as well as inducements to the victim.

Sgt Hynes said he was concerned that McNeill could offend again on his eventual release from prison unless he was given counselling.

"During the trial I saw a side of him I never saw before," said Sgt Hynes. "He denied everything in evidence and has at no stage ever apologised."

He said McNeill never gave gardaí his full co-operation when being interviewed after his arrest. He first denied the allegations, then made admissions but followed that by withdrawing them.

Sgt Hynes agreed with Mr Sweetman his view was a personal one and that nobody else in the area had come forward with allegations about McNeill

Mr Justice Abbot said an aggravating factor in the case was that McNeill had groomed and exploited the victim by manipulating her interest in smoking and her fear of her parents, who had reared her strictly, finding out.

He had established "a cloak of secrecy" and used his knowledge of her family movements to get to her on her own. There was also evidence of inducement by giving her sums of money. The "serial nature" of the offending had to be marked by a consecutive element in the sentence.

The jury of five women and seven men returned its verdicts having deliberated for some nine hours and spent two nights in a hotel. The trial lasted nine days.

The jury convicted McNeill unanimously of orally raping the now 24-year-old woman on a date in 1991 and also on two charges of sexually assaulting her in 1992 and 1993. Following its second night in a hotel, the jury returned 11-1 majority guilty verdicts on two counts of indecent assault on dates in 1989.

McNeill was found not guilty on three futher charges of raping the complainant on dates in 1989, 1994 and 1997 but the jury substituted 11-1 majority guilty verdicts of sexual assault in the 1989 and 1994 charges.

McNeill denied all the charges and in sworn evidence he told Mr Sweetman he never had sexual relations with anyone during his life.

Sgt Hynes said the victim was aged nine years when she was first sexually abused by McNeill who fondled her through her clothes outside her own house.

He then sexually assaulted her in the church when she was helping him there in the Summer of 1989 and it became more serious in the Autumn of that year with inducements of cigarettes because even though she was only 10 she liked to smoke.

The abuse continued until 1997 and gardaí were contacted on November 11, 2000 after the victim confided in someone. McNeill was arrested on December 19, 2000.

The victim told the jury that McNeill threatened to tell her parents she smoked and she was afraid not to continue meeting him. He would also give her cigarettes when they met and he abused her.

She said her parents were very strict about all aspects of life and the family wasn’t allowed look at television programmes like ‘Dallas’. They would have been very angry with her for smoking.

She said McNeill would get to undress and to masturbate him as well as perform oral sex while they were alone in the locked church. There were incidents also in her family turf shed.

He became angry with threats of revealing all to her parents when she told him she wouldn’t see him again. He said he would take an overdose and she would have to explain why to his family.

She didn’t care anymore at this time, she said, but she wasn’t sure if she said that to the him. McNeill continued to visit her house but not as often. When he did, he would try to sit beside her and talk to her but she endeavoured to stay out of his way.

She deliberately failed to remain at home, as he had demanded, on the occasion of a midsummer’s night bonfire and he later said to her he got his revenge by breaking her father’s cattle trough.

The woman said she suspected it was McNeill who alleged to gardaí that her father was neglecting his livestock. This resulted in gardaí calling to her home and he later asked her if they had a visit from people in uniform. She agreed she felt hostility towards him as a result.

He came to her house again in 1999 and demanded she talk to him but she told him to leave and pushed him out. He fell on the path outside and her father helped him up for fear he was hurt, took him inside and made tea for him.

Sgt Hynes told Mr Comyn that McNeill claimed when interviewed on December 19, 2000, that the victim "came on" to him regularly when she would come to the church so as to smoke behind her parents’ backs.. He said she had whatever happened to her coming to her.

Sgt Hynes said McNeill signed notes of the interview in which he claimed he had sex with her in the church and that they were sometimes interrupted in their activities by a knock on the church door or by another local man coming in.

"I was delighted he was there. I was really delighted he was there," he said. He also claimed in the interview: "It was very hard to shake her off. There were nights we had rows"

Sgt Hynes said McNeill claimed she often put her arm around his neck in her house in front of her family and would write him notes saying "I love you". He threw these notes away and did the same with a ‘Valentine’ card he claims she sent him.

He told gardaí she performed oral sex on him twice at her instigation. She knelt down to do it while he stood but he said she didn’t like it and denied she had become sick.

He said she was 17 when she first came down to smoke in the church. He agreed he used to give her a cigarette and agreed he should have told her parents when he said they had "a bit of a falling out" in 1998 and he told her he didn’t want her smoking in the church.

Sgt Hynes said McNeill told gardaí the sex began when she came to him in the church and kissed him, before she put his hand into her pants to feel her vagina and also felt his penis.

He said she had breasts and pubic hair at this time and would undress herself before "rubbing herself against me" while she asked him to put his penis into her. He said they had sex on the edge of a church seat, in an aisle and in the sacristy.

Sgt Hynes added that McNeill agreed in further questioning that he went to the turf shed with her to smoke and for sexual activity because, he said, he "enjoyed it and was only human."